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The Open University

Astronomy with an online telescope

The Open University via OpenLearn

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Overview

This free course, Astronomy with an online telescope, shows you how to navigate the night sky, and introduces the wide variety of objects it contains. You will develop a hands-on understanding of telescopic observations using the Open University’s own robotic telescope facility COAST sited on the island of Tenerife. Supported by your own measurements we illustrate how stars evolve, and study variable stars. For those new to astronomy and/or the use of robotic telescopes this course provides a practical introduction and will prepare you for further OU study where remotely operable telescopes feature. For those undertaking the GCSE Astronomy course or studying informally the series of structured activities this course contains will allow you to produce a beautiful image of a celestial object of your choice – and analyse the changing magnitude of a variable star over time (one of the approved aided GCSE Astronomy projects). Transcript6569 This OpenLearn science course was produced with the kind support of Dangoor Education, the educational arm of The Exilarch's Foundation. This course was also developed with the help of the ASTERICS  Horizon2020 project. ASTERICS is a project supported by the European Commission Framework Programme Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation action under grant agreement n. 653477. This course is accredited by the CPD Standards Office. It can be used to provide evidence of continuing professional development and on successful completion of the course you will be awarded 24 CPD points. Evidence of your CPD achievement is provided on the free Statement of Participation awarded on completion.Anyone wishing to provide evidence of their enrolment on this course is able to do so by sharing their Activity Record on their OpenLearn Profile, which is available before completion of the course and earning of the Statement of Participation. Enrolling on the course will give you the opportunity to earn an Open University digital badge. Badges are not accredited by The Open University but they’re a great way to demonstrate your interest in the subject and commitment to your career, and to provide evidence of continuing professional development.Once you are signed in, you can manage your digital badges online from My OpenLearn. In addition, you can download and print your OpenLearn statement of participation – which also displays your Open University badge.The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey 3413456973. Once you complete the course we would also value your feedback and suggestions for future improvement, in our optional end-of-course survey 7074. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

Syllabus

  • Introduction and guidance
  • Introduction and guidance
  • Telescope upgrade 2021
  • What is a badged course?
  • How to get a badge
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week1Week 1: The night sky
  • Introduction
  • 1 Finding your way around the sky using Stellarium software
  • 1.1 Installing Stellarium and getting started
  • 1.2 Setting your location
  • 1.3 Controlling how Stellarium displays the sky
  • 2 The apparent motion of objects in the night sky
  • 2.1 Our changing view of the sky
  • 2.2 First observations from Tenerife – the All-Sky camera
  • 2.3 Using Stellarium to understand the apparent motion of the sky
  • 2.4 Understanding how the sky changes with the seasons
  • 3 Mapping the night sky
  • 3.1 Two coordinate systems
  • 3.2 The Altitude-Azimuth system
  • 3.3 Equatorial celestial coordinates – right ascension and declination
  • 3.4 Using equatorial coordinates to locate objects
  • 4 This week’s quiz
  • 5 Summary of Week 1
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week2Week 2: Telescopes and visual observing
  • Introduction
  • 1 Observing with the naked eye
  • 1.1 Understanding dark adaptation
  • 1.2 Testing your own dark adaptation
  • 1.3 Observing the night sky with dark-adapted eyes
  • 2 Observing with optical instruments
  • 2.1 Binoculars
  • 2.2 Telescopes
  • 3 Observing from the Earth
  • 4 The COAST facility
  • 5 This week’s quiz
  • 6 Summary of Week 2
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week3Week 3: Stellar magnitudes
  • Introduction
  • 1 Brightness of the stars
  • 1.1 The magnitude scale
  • 1.2 Exploring the magnitude scale
  • 1.3 Estimating magnitudes by comparing stars
  • 2 Magnitude limits
  • 2.1 Magnitude limits and choice of observing site
  • 2.2 Estimating magnitudes from an image
  • 3 Your limits
  • 4 This week’s quiz
  • 5 Summary of Week 3
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week4Week 4: Imaging Messier objects with COAST
  • Introduction
  • 1 Messier objects
  • 1.1 The Messier catalogue
  • 1.2 The different types of Messier objects
  • 1.3 Messier objects in Stellarium
  • 2 Requesting your first image
  • 2.1 Planning your observations
  • 2.2 Register with COAST
  • 2.3 Requesting an image from COAST
  • 3 Collecting your first image
  • 4 This week’s quiz
  • 5 Summary of Week 4
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week5Week 5: The Sun and the stars
  • Introduction
  • 1 Continue observing with COAST
  • 2 The Sun as an ordinary star
  • 2.1 The Sun – some facts and figures
  • 2.2 The energy output of the Sun
  • 2.3 The mass, composition and structure of the Sun
  • 2.4 The age of the Sun
  • 2.5 Summary – properties of the Sun
  • 3 What powers the Sun and stars?
  • 3.1 The most famous equation in the world
  • 3.2 Nuclear fusion – the source of the Sun’s energy
  • 3.3 Estimating the Sun’s lifetime
  • 3.4 Midweek summary
  • 4 Comparing the Sun with other stars
  • 5 This week’s quiz
  • 6 Summary of Week 5
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week6Week 6: Classifying the stars
  • Introduction
  • 1 Refine and edit your COAST images
  • 2 Classifying stars – the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
  • 2.1 The differing colours of stars
  • 2.2 Building the HR diagram
  • 2.3 Understanding the main sequence
  • 3 The masses of stars
  • 3.1 Measuring the masses of stars
  • 3.2 How the mass of a star affects its luminosity
  • 4 The lifecycles of stars
  • 4.1 The main sequence
  • 4.2 Stellar lifetime as a function of mass
  • 4.3 After the main sequence
  • 5 This week’s quiz
  • 6 Summary of Week 6
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week7Week 7: Variable stars
  • Introduction
  • 1 Stellar evolution after the main sequence
  • 1.1 Helium as a nuclear fuel
  • 1.2 Expansion and the red giant branch
  • 1.3 Tracks on the HR diagram
  • 1.4 The instability strip
  • 2 Variable stars
  • 2.1 Pulsating variables and their light curves
  • 2.2 Eclipsing variables
  • 2.3 Supernovae and cataclysmic variables
  • 3 Collaboration in observing
  • 4 Plan your own variable star observations using COAST
  • 5 This week’s quiz
  • 6 Summary of Week 7
  • Acknowledgements
  • Week8Week 8: Building a light curve
  • Introduction
  • 1 Retrieving your images
  • 1.1 File formats
  • 1.2 Save images in FITS format
  • 2 Measuring the brightness of your variable star
  • 2.1 Aperture photometry
  • 2.2 Reference stars
  • 2.3 Using finder charts to identify target and reference stars
  • 2.4 Aperture photometry
  • 3 Building the light curve
  • 3.1 View your results on the light curve
  • 3.2 Interpreting the light curve
  • 3.3 Request further images
  • 4 This week’s quiz
  • 5 Summary of Week 8
  • 6 Concluding thoughts
  • Tell us what you think
  • Acknowledgements

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4.9 rating at OpenLearn based on 22 ratings

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